Title: Will the real Gospel please stand up?
Today there is a lot of confusion about what the Gospel is. The word gospel means good news. But a lot of the gospels I hear about don’t sound like good news to me. As you may already know I was raised Catholic and I was taught that if you were good you would go to heaven and if you were bad you would go to hell. Billionaire Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza, is a staunch Catholic. Here is how he sums up his theology:
"I was taught -– and I bought it -– that if I live a certain way I’m going to go to Heaven, and if I live a certain way I was going to go to Hell," he said. "And that’s for eternity. And Hell was worse than anything you can imagine here. Heaven was better than anything you can imagine. So, to me, it’s all that simple. I get it, and I want other people to get it, too, for their own benefit. Is that illogical? Is that insanity? I don’t know. I don’t want to go to Hell".
Trying to be good enough to get to heaven leads people in a lot of interesting directions. I am sure you have seen catholic monks wearing their long robes and having a rope tied about their waste with knots in it. They don’t wear that rope for decoration and its not to hold their pants up. Would you believe that they use the rope is to beat themselves! It is a practice called asceticism. They do this as a way to try and make themselves better. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem like good news to me. I don’t think if we put a sign on the front of this church "come on in and beat yourself" that we would get a very big crowd! There is a relatively new traditional Catholic order called Opus Dei. My mother has a book by Josemaria Escriva, founder of this order. I looked inside the cover to see what he had to say. He began by saying "O wonderful pain, glorious pain, etc." He said "to get to Heaven we have to suffer", He also practices asceticism. You know what is truly amazing? They actually have a big following! Is suffering and pain God’s path to earn salvation? I remember going to a shrine and watching people going up stone stairs on their bare knees in an attempt to earn something from God. You can see Catholics doing this at Fatima until their knees are bloody! But even this self imposed suffering is still not enough to get a catholic into heaven. Catholics are taught that when you die you go to a place called purgatory and there you have to be burned in flames to pay for your sins. Does that sound like good news to you?
I don’t want to just pick on the Catholics. I talk about Catholicism because I grew up in it and I am very familiar with it. But other religions have similar ideas. The Jehovah’s Witnesses make you go door to door witnessing to earn your salvation. If you don’t go witnessing their God drops you! The 7th Day Adventists follow the teachings of Ellen G. White, who wrote, "Jesus has purchased redemption for us. It is ours, BUT we are placed here on probation to see if we will prove worthy of eternal life." With them obtaining eternal life depends on proving your worthiness.
In the movie "Saving Private Ryan," Tom Hanks portrays an Army captain whose unit is assigned to find a private named Ryan in the dangerous aftermath of the D-Day Invasion. Ryan’s brothers have both been killed in combat, and, unbeknownst to him, he is his mother’s only surviving son. The mission involves the captain’s unit in brutal battles with the Germans. But Private Ryan is located and his life is saved by his captain who dies in the process. As Private Ryan attends to his mortally wounded rescuer, the captain speaks his last words in a hoarse whisper - "Earn this." The camera merges from the young private’s face to the face of an old man, standing by a white cross in the cemetery at Normandy. It is Ryan many years later, near the end of his life. He kneels by his captain’s grave and says: "Every day of my life, I’ve thought about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I’ve done my best. I hope at least in your eyes that I’ve lived up to all you gave for me." Since the time Jesus was crucified on the cross. People have been looking at His sacrifice and have tried to "earn this". But is that the good news of the Gospel? Do you have to do all kinds of things to "earn this"? Have you been confused about what the real Gospel is? Will the real Gospel please stand up? Today I want to challenge you to know and believe the real Gospel.
The apostle Paul speaks about knowing the real Gospel in his epistle to the Galatians chapter 2, verse 16. If you have not found the passage yet, would you please turn to it as we will answer the question: Do you have to earn your salvation?
When Christianity began it was entirely Jewish. In Old Testament times God had forbidden the Jews to marry gentiles. The reason was that God knew that if Jewish men married gentile women that these gentile wives would teach their Jewish husbands to worship their pagan gods. To protect His people from idolatry, God had forbidden intermarriage. This in effect erected a spiritual wall of separation between His chosen people the Jews and the gentiles. Since the Church was 100 percent Jewish when it began, that same wall of separation was carried into Christianity. No Gentiles were allowed in! If you had been alive back then and went to a church door, you might have found a sign that said something like Gentiles Stay Out! But God intervened. The apostle Peter had a vision whereby God showed him that He was also extending His offer of salvation to the gentiles. Now the admission of gentiles into the church created some questions in the minds of the Jewish Christians. The problem was that the Gentile believers knew nothing about the 613 commandments of the Jewish Law! These commandments included what are commonly called the 10 commandments. The question was, is the keeping of the commandments a requirement for salvation? There was a sharp disagreement over this issue among the first Jewish Christians. Those who claimed that the keeping of the Jewish law was necessary for salvation became known as the Judaizers.
This brings us to the text we are studying today. The controversy had spilled over into a area of what is present day Turkey, known then as Galatia. A group of the Judaizers had arrived there and they were teaching the new gentile Christians that they had to keep the law to be saved. The apostle Paul wrote this letter, which we call Galatians, to the church there to specifically address this issue. What is the real Gospel? In our text today the apostle Paul tells us that the real Gospel does not make you earn your salvation. Won’t you please follow with me as we answer this question; what is the real gospel?
In verse 16 Paul says "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." In effect he is saying I know it, therefore it is true. Well you may say that doesn’t sound like a very convincing argument. Just because someone thinks something is true, does not mean that it is? But you have to understand who is speaking here. Paul was an apostle. The apostles were men that received their teaching directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said in Galatians 1:12 "For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ". Not only that, but God confirmed that the apostle’s teachings were from Him. How did he confirm it? He used them to heal the sick and even to raise-the-dead. Now, If I were to raise someone from the dead you’d sure be interested in what I had to say!...because you would also realize that there was a power much greater than Andrew at work. So when Paul says he knows, that is enough to make anyone stand up and take notice.
The word "justified", here in verse 16, is an important word.. It has a two fold meaning. First, it means the subtraction of the penalty for your sins, because the penalty has been paid. But the payment of the penalty for your sins is not enough to make you right with God. The sins that you committed are only the symptom of a much deeper problem. The problem is that you are still a sinner! Because we are not good this word justified also carries a second meaning. It means that righteousness is added to you. The word righteousness means holy or upright living that conforms to God’s perfect standard. So when you are justified the penalty for your sin has been paid and God’s perfect goodness has been added to you. Then you are legally declared justified or right with God and fit for heaven.
The big question is how do you become justified? There are only two possibilities. The first possibility is that you pay for your own sins and try to achieve righteousness yourself by living a perfect life that conforms to God’s perfect standard. The Law is a perfectly straight line and if you conform your life perfectly to that line, in theory you can earn acceptance from God. Remember that was the position of the Judaizers. The only other possibility and Paul tells us about it in verse 16, is that you are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. When this question first arose about whether Justification was by keeping the law or by faith, the apostles held a council in Jerusalem to decide the issue. They unanimously agreed that since the Jews, in their long history, had never once been able to keep the Law it did not make sense to try to put that burden on the gentiles as well. Not one of the apostles agreed with the Judaizers on this issue. So when Paul says in verse 16 "we know" he means that he and all the other apostles are in agreement on this very important and fundamental issue. Justification is by faith and not by keeping the law.
Again, in verse 16, Paul gives us the reason why justification can only be by faith. He says "a man cannot be justified by the works of the law". It is just not possible! The great problem with trying to earn salvation is that no-one has ever done it! It is not that there was anything wrong with the Law. The problem is with human beings. In the movie the ‘Sound of Music’ a young woman by the name of Maria is sent from a convent to become governess to the five mischievous children of a wealthy widower sea captain. When she arrives Captain von Trapp informs her that the children have had seven governesses and that the last one had only lasted one day. Maria looked concerned and asks "What’s wrong with the children Captain?" The captain looks at Maria annoyed and says "there is nothing wrong with the children only with the governesses". The law of God is perfect. There is nothing wrong with it. The problem is really with us - the children of men. Our sinful nature makes us incapable of perfectly obeying God. As a result justification by perfect obedience to the law of God is a path that is completely closed to us. I once heard the story of a pastor who was preaching the truth that no one is perfect. To prove his point he asked for anyone who was perfect to stand up. One man stood up in the middle of the congregation. The pastor asked, "Do you really think you are perfect?" The man replied, "Oh no! I’m not perfect. I’m standing up on behalf of my wife’s first husband!"
What is the total number of people who are going to heaven because they have perfectly kept God’s law? Zero! Paul states here that "by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified". He tells us in this verse that that is why the apostles have believed in Jesus Christ and not wasted their time with this other path.
Okay, so we have it now on the authority of the apostles that you can’t be good enough or do enough to earn your way to heaven. Lets look at the only path that is open to us, that which the apostle Paul referred to as the faith of Jesus Christ. Let’s consider the word Justification one more time. We saw that the first meaning of the word was subtraction. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, His death on the cross becomes the payment for your sins. The penalty is subtracted from you because someone else paid it. The second meaning of the word justification is addition. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ His righteousness or perfection becomes yours. Let me give you an example of how this works in every day life. The super bowl was just played last Sunday. The Patriots played the Giants. Many of the fans went to the game wearing shirts and hats that had the logo of their team printed on them. If you were to watch these fans during the game you would notice that when the Patriots did something great on the field their fans would get all excited - cheering and screaming - and the Giants fans would be very quiet and somber. In the same way if the Giants did something great their fans would go crazy and the Patriots fans would be quiet and somber. When the game was over the Patriots had lost. I am certain many Patriots fans were sad and depressed. They had put their faith in the team and the team had let them down. When they went to work the next day, many were still down in the dumps. I know because I have been there! So what is the principle at work here? The principle is that when you put your faith in a team and so identify with them by putting on one of their shirts and becoming a fan…it means that when the quarterback on the field throws a touchdown it is as if you threw the touchdown! Whatever your team does on the field it is as if you did it. When they loose, it is as if you lost. This is exactly how it works when you put your faith in Jesus Christ. When you identify with Jesus by putting your faith in Him, the perfect life He lived becomes your perfect life. The life that you could never live. When He was crucified on the cross in payment for the sins of the world, it is as if you were crucified there as well and when he paid for the sins of the world, your sins were paid for as well. When He rose from the dead it meant that you will rise from the dead one day as well. Everything He did is as though you did it yourself. It works the same way it did for the sports fan that identified with his team. You identify with Jesus Christ the same way, by faith.
Does it sound too good to be true, does it sound too easy? Did you know that when "Betty Crocker" first introduced her cake mix, women simply didn’t believe a dry mix, in a small box, at a reasonable price would make a cake. The company modified its claims and told women they must add an egg. They believe it and sales skyrocketed!
When Parker Pen Company introduced the first ball-point pen, they asked just 29 cents for it. Sales were horrible. On the advice of a consultant they made the price over a dollar and suddenly sales soared. A man once asked the apostle Paul "what must I do to be saved?" He answered "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved?" Many people cannot accept that the price for eternal salvation could be so cheap. The reason it is cheap for us is that we are not capable of paying for it. But it really isn’t cheap, It cost God a heavy price, the life of his only son.
There was a certain man who had worked all his life and was ready for a vacation. He wanted to go to a far away place he had never been before. He thought to himself; you are a good person, you’ve helped the poor and took care of the needy. So you deserve this trip. He went to the airport and got in line to get on the plane. In his mind, he felt no need to buy a ticket because of all the great things he has done for people in his lifetime. He thought he had earned this trip. As the line got closer and closer to board the plane, he grew more and more anxious to start enjoying himself on his journey. It came his turn to pass his ticket in and to the amazement of the ticket collector; he told her he didn’t have a ticket, because he deserved the trip. He went on to explain what a good person he was and how he never hurt anyone or caused anyone any sort of pain, but the ticket collector told him, "you still need a ticket sir!" He told her "I have never stolen from anyone, nor cheated anyone in all my life", but still she stood firm and insisted he could not board the plane unless a ticket was given to her. He said "I have given money to the poor and fed the needy", but still not being moved the ticket collector said if you want to get on this plane you have to have a ticket. No exceptions. The man was shocked. He walked away with his head held down low and thought to himself, "I figured if I was a good person, who never hurt anyone and took care of other people, surely I would be able to get a ride on the plane, but I guess I was wrong".
That is what some people think of Heaven. They think that if they are good people, who never hurt anyone and take care of others, they will earn a ride into Heaven. But the bible clearly says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8,9). Salvation is a free gift through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. No man can buy his way into Heaven by being good enough, but Jesus came down to Earth in his own free will to give us Eternal Life. All you have to do is trust him by Faith as your Lord and Savior. He has purchased your ticket on the cross, but it is up to you to claim it. I invite you this morning to put your trust in the One who has paid such a high price. The work has already been done. The blood has been shed. The price has been paid. The only thing left is for you to place your faith in Him. I could offer to give you a one hundred dollar bill by holding it out with my hand. But until you reach out and take it from me, it will never be yours. The same is true with God’s offer of salvation, until you receive it, it’s not yours. Won’t you receive it by putting your trust in Jesus today?
